Oobi
Oobi is the main character of the show. He is a smart, curious hand puppet with brownish-hazel eyes. He lives with his sister Uma and his grandpa Grampu. He was played by Tim Lagasse. Oobi is a curious puppet with an eye for adventure. He explores the world around him in small steps and is always eager to learn something new. Oobi is a role model to his little sister, Uma, who usually looks to him for guidance. He has a good-natured attitude and is loyal to his friends. His quiet, self-conscious personality is often contrasted with Uma and Kako's goofiness and arrogance. Oobi's favorite color is blue, and most of his belongings have a blue color scheme to set them apart from Uma's. Oobi is closest with his sister Uma and grandfather Grampu. His best friend is his next-door neighbor Kako, who visits Oobi's house so much that he is practically another member of the family. Oobi's friendship with Kako has lasted since they were very young. They have a lot of the same interests, like playing T-ball and taking care of pets. However, their personalities are drastically different and balance each other out. Kako is jokey, energetic, and sometimes conceited while Oobi is more reserved and thoughtful. .]] Oobi is also friends with Frieda the Foot, a girl who happens to be a foot puppet instead of a hand. When he first met Frieda, Oobi was instantly smitten with her but thought they couldn't play together because they look and act different. Grampu helped him realize that differences are good and people come in many shapes and sizes. Oobi has been a close friend of Frieda ever since. An important element in the series is Oobi's dream of becoming a piano player. He takes piano lessons from Inka, an elderly woman who is dating Grampu. Being a hand, Oobi needs to focus all of his energy on the music when he plays the piano. After all, he uses his entire body to touch the keys. He takes a lot of pride in being able to master simple tunes, but he tends to get nervous when he has to perform in front of others. Along with his piano lessons, Oobi is part of the community center singing group. He and Kako visit the center every week to take singing lessons from Maestru, the local voice teacher and part-time conductor. Maestru was not very fond of Oobi or Kako when they first met. He knew the boys had a talent for singing when they put their minds to it, but they preferred to sing their own songs rather than perform as part of the group. Luckily, after some practice and a short talk about what it means to be part of a team, Oobi and Kako learned how to sing in unison and became official members of the singing group. Oobi's favorite toy and prized possession is a red toy racecar, modeled after a 1973 Ford Mustang. Although he loves playing with it, he obsesses over keeping it in perfect condition, treating it more like a collectible than a toy. He is always hesitant to let anyone else touch his car, out of fear that they'll break it. On the one occasion that Oobi let Uma play with the car, she accidentally broke a loose wheel off and ended up destroying the whole thing while trying to fix it. Grampu was able to fully repair the toy with the kids' help, and Uma even fixed its squeaky wheel with some oil. At the end of every episode, Oobi waves goodbye to the viewers while using his catchphrase: "Oobi, you, friends!" Even when he isn't the focus of an episode, Oobi shows up at the end to say the line. For example, "Uma Preschool!" is all about Uma's school life, but Oobi still pops up at the end to say it and wave goodbye to the audience. There are some meta-references in the show about how much Oobi uses the phrase, like a scene in "Uma Dreams!" that reveals he even says it in his sleep! Being the main character, Oobi was the first puppet created for the show. From the beginning, he was meant to be the simplest kind of hand puppet imaginable, with his signature acrylic eyes being his only accessory. Series creator Josh Selig said in 2004 that he experimented with many different names while developing Oobi as a character. His first choice for Oobi's name was "Pipo". (source) He had to choose a different name after he learned that Pipo was already trademarked by an Italian brand of jeans. He still wanted "a name that wasn't like any other name" and "didn't want to name Oobi after a real child, since he's kind of his own species." (source) He eventually settled on Oobi, because the double O's mirror Oobi's iconic eyeballs. Oobi's performer, Tim Lagasse, is a veteran puppeteer for Sesame Workshop. He was chosen to play Oobi because of his previous work as a bare-handed puppeteer on A Show of Hands. This was a series of short films that Tim wrote and directed for Nickelodeon. Each short featured Lagasse and several other puppeteers performing short comedy skits with their hands. They focused on the visual illusions that can be made with hand gestures and shadows. Many of the techniques that Tim used to convey expressions through hand motions in the films were carried over to Oobi. In an interview with the Newsweek magazine, Josh Selig mentioned that Tim had to shave his arm regularly while working on Oobi so that his character would not look like an adult. Tim and the other cast members were paid to visit a manicurist and get their nails touched up every week during production. On his website, Tim mentions that Oobi "is probably the most unique thing I have ever done." (source) Oobi is a small hand puppet with fair skin. His eyes are dark brown in the shorts and hazel in the full-length episodes. Four fingers act as Oobi's upper lip, while his thumb acts as his lower lip. Unlike most of the other puppets, he only wears accessories or clothing on special occasions. Three pairs of acrylic puppet eyes were used for Oobi throughout the show's run: a brown pair in the shorts, and two separate pairs of hazel eyes for seasons one and two. With each new pair, Oobi's eyes got lighter and lighter in color. Promo images Noggin Oobi - Promo pose, looking up.png Noggin Oobi - Promo pose, talking.png Noggin Oobi - Promo pose, dancing.png Oobi Nick Jr Noggin TV Series Show Hand Puppet Character 2.jpg Oobi Nick Jr Noggin TV Series Show Hand Puppet Character 3.jpg Oobi Nick Jr Noggin TV Series Show Hand Puppet Character 4.jpg Oobi-Noggin-photo-otoscope-profile.png Oobi-Rex-dinosaur-costume.jpg Oobi Nick Jr Noggin TV Series Show Hand Puppet Character 1.jpg Oobi-Noggin-photo-Oobi-Uma-kitchen.png Noggin Oobi and Uma Hand Puppets Characters Nick Jr. Nickelodeon.jpg Oobi-Noggin-photo-train-tracks-1.png Oobi-Noggin-photo-Oobi-left-out.png Oobi-dinosaur-Halloween-costume.jpg Oobi-Uma-circus-costumes.jpg Screenshots Oobi-Camp-Out-bye.png|Oobi camping out Oobi-Uma-Swing-Oobi-watching-Uma.png|At the playground Oobi-Uma-Bathroom-toy-shark.png|Uma sneaking up on Oobi Oobi-Dance-Class-practice.png|"Practice." Oobi-Kako's-Puppy-ending.png|Oobi with Kako's puppy Oobi-Uma's-Birthday-Oobi-wearing-his-hat.png|Oobi in a party hat Oobi-Haircut-trim-close-up.png|Oobi's first haircut Oobi-Haircut-hair-dance.png|Doing the "hair dance" Oobi-Grampu-Day-Oobi-happy.png|Mimicking Kako Oobi-Garden-Day-Oobi-pointing.png|Oobi pointing Oobi-Garden-Day-thumbs-up.png|Thumbs up Oobi-Showtime-Oobi-as-a-cat.png|Oobi's cat costume Oobi-Piano-Lesson-Oobi-at-the-piano.png|Oobi at the piano Oobi-Uma-Sick-Oobi-talking.png|Oobi in his room Oobi-Uma-Sick-ending.png|"Oobi, you, friends!" Oobi-Playdate-Oobi-meeting-his-new-pet.png|Oobi's pet turtle Oobi-Playdate-Oobi-gets-an-idea.png|"Oobi draw!" Oobi-Make-Art-Oobi-as-Marilyn-Monroe.png|Oobi as Marilyn Monroe Oobi-Rainy-Day-ending.png|Oobi in the rain Oobi-Grown-Up-Oobi-wearing-a-tie.png|Businessman Oobi Oobi-Kako-Dinner-Oobi-talking.png|At Kako's house Oobi-Chopsticks-ending.png|At the Chinese restaurant Oobi-Halloween-ending.png|Oobi's dinosaur costume Oobi-Sign-Language-hand-sign.png|Learning sign language Oobi-Baby-Sophie-falls-asleep.png|Oobi with Sophie Oobi-Recital-Angus-thumbs-up.png|Angus gives Oobi a thumbs-up Oobi-Theater-closing-curtain.png|Oobi as the Big Bad Wolf Oobi-Nature-Walk-Oobi-with-his-backpack.png|On a nature walk Oobi-Fishing-song.png|Oobi fishing with Grampu Oobi-Superheroes-Super-Oobi.png|"Super Oobi!" Game sprites Oobi-normal-sprite.png|Normal Oobi-facing-right-sprite.png|Facing right Oobi-mouth-open-sprite.png|Mouth open Oobi-thinking-sprite.png|Thinking Oobi-with-pencil-sprite.png|Holding a pencil Oobi-watering-can-sprite.png|Holding a watering can *His favorite food is pizza. *"Haircut!" reveals that his natural hair color is brown. *Oobi's age and school situation are ambiguous in the show. Official statements from Noggin state that he is four years old and in grade school. "Uma Preschool!" reveals that Uma attends preschool, but Oobi is absent for most of the episode and is never seen in school. *Oobi's counterpart in Oobi: Dasdasi, the Iranian adaptation of the series, is a hand puppet with dark brown eyes who wears a beanie hat and overalls. *Because Oobi and Grampu share the same eye color and skin tone, it's implied that Oobi will look almost identical to his grandfather when he grows older. *Oobi is the only character who appears in every full-length episode. *Out of the 48 shorts, only three of them don't feature Oobi: "Flush!", "Bird!", and "Bongo Drums!". Category:Characters Category:Males Category:Main characters Category:Multiple-show characters